The waitress sighed wearily. “I don’t know, hon. Pie? Milkshakes?”
Mary perked up. “Oh, I’ll have a milkshake, please. Strawberry.”
“Nothing for me,” Tucker said, forcing his expression to remain stoic, even though it made him nothing short of wistful watching Mary get excited for a milkshake. “You ever had one?” he asked as the waitress walked away.
“No. We don’t need to eat much. But when I do, I like sugar.” She tilted her head slightly. “Do you miss eating?”
“You have no idea.” Her giggle made the corner of his mouth edge up. “Eating used to be my favorite pastime. If I had a soul, I would sell it for a meatball sub. Straight up.”
Mary reared back. “You don’t think you have a soul?”
He hedged, digging the spoon into the pad of his thumb. “Truthfully…I’m not sure. I’ve met a lot of vamps that were soulless. Others seem just a step away from humanity. All of their emotions were still there.”
“Like you?”
Tucker gave a jerky nod. “Actually, I have kind of a theory about it. Why some vampires are decent and others are…demonic.” He’d never talked about this out loud to anyone before and the actual words leaving his mouth sounded crazier than they did in his head. “I think it comes down to your actions, your intentions in the moment you’re Silenced. My friends, Jonas, Elias, Roksana, Ginny…they were all turned while trying to help someone else. Maybe there’s some small mercy that allows a person to retain their soul if their last moment was a good one.”
“That’s a beautiful theory,” Mary whispered. “Your last moment as a human must have been extraordinary.”
“Now,” he chuckled around the lump forming in his throat. “You already found a hole in the theory. My last night as a human, I organized an illegal street race. People died.”
Her dark red brows pulled together. “Did you kill them?”
“No. Two vampires…I was too far away to see what happened, but they caused a crash between the drivers. Drained three onlookers until there was nothing left.” Tucker pulled over the salt shaker, twisting it in imprecise circles. “None of them would have been there at all if it wasn’t for me.”
A beat passed. “These vampires were the soulless kind?”
He managed a tight nod. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Then they would have found another way to wreak havoc, Tucker.” She reached across the table, brushing his wrist with her cool fingertips. “What happened to the drivers?”
“They lived.”
“Really? Why?” Tucker didn’t answer, continuing to watch her pale fingers on his ruddy skin. He refused to get credit for leading the vamps away that night. There was no way he deserved an ounce of praise. Still, when he looked up at Mary she was smiling knowingly. As if his silence had been proof enough. “Your last moment was a good one, too,” she murmured.
A paper straw was tossed down on the table between them, followed by a tall glass of blended ice cream. “Strawberry milkshake,” said the waitress, sliding Tucker a look. “Sure you don’t want anything, soldier?”
“I’m sure,” he said, guiding the straw toward Mary’s seeking hand.
The waitress left again.
Mary ripped the straw out of the paper and used both hands to guide it into the milkshake, taking a long sip. Swallowing, she gasped and fell back against the seat. “Oh my goodness. It’s so g…” She snapped her mouth shut, cheeks deepening with color. “Terrible. It’s terrible.”
Tucker grinned. “I see you right through you, kid. You don’t have to pretend you don’t like it for my sake.”
She damn near gulped the entire thing down in one pull. “No, I’m serious. You would hate it.”
“Lies. All lies.”
Mary’s lips twitched, but slowly she sobered. “So. You work for the vampire king.”
“That’s right.” Tucker slid the salt shaker back into place. “He was a pain in the ass before, but now he’s a royal pain in the ass.”
She shook her head. “You don’t mean that. I can tell.”
“Naw. I don’t. Jonas is good people.”
A wrinkled formed on her forehead and he could almost hear what she was thinking. When she married Hadrian, she would inherit Jonas as an enemy—and this girl wasn’t the type to have a foe at all. Let alone end up on the dark side. And it was clearly bothering her. Just not enough to give up the chance of gaining her sight and righting things with Tilda. “How…did you meet him?”
In spite of his troubling thoughts, Tucker smiled at the memory. “He got into the back of my